THIS WEEKEND
Crashing into theaters nationwide, Deep
Impact annihilated the competition with
a weekend gross of $41.2M. The Paramount/DreamWorks co-production, which
stars Morgan Freeman and Téa Leoni, arrived in 3,156 theaters with 4,600
prints and scored a muscular $13,039 average per theater. The mammoth debut
was an extinction level event and stands as the tenth largest opening in
history, inching past Twister's
$41.1M from two years ago this very weekend, and is the biggest opening
outside of the traditional Memorial Day to Labor Day summer season. Deep
Impact also posted the biggest debut of
any film since last summer's Men in Black
which landed with a $51.1M weekend haul. Plus, it was the second-best opening
weekend for Paramount ever behind Mission:
Impossible's $56.8M four-day holiday debut
in 1996. After only three days of release, Deep
Impact is already the sixth highest-grossing
new release of 1998 and should surpass The
Wedding Singer by the end of the week
to become number one.

Many factors contributed
to the enormous success of the comet picture. Paramount brilliantly promoted
the movie and selected the best possible release date - two weekends before
the Memorial Day holiday frame. Aside from Lost
in Space, there has not been a big special
effects film in some time so the timing was perfect to jumpstart the summer
with what was widely considered the weaker of the two comet movies this
summer. Ticket buyers were eager to rally behind this event film after
weeks of mediocre new releases. And the story of society facing extinction
resulting from the comets colliding with Earth appeals to the widest possible
spectrum of moviegoers transcending age, gender, race, and geographic boundaries.
An ultrawide launch certainly helped as Deep
Impact joined only The
Man in the Iron Mask and Lost
in Space as movies opening in over 3,000
theaters this year. The lack of competition was also a major factor as
Deep Impact accounted
for an amazing 61% of all ticket sales for the top ten movies.

Many of these same
factors propelled Twister to
a record-breaking opening two years ago this weekend. Like Deep
Impact, Twister
was an early summer disaster film, executive produced by Steven Spielberg,
that ignited a box office that was in a serious downturn due to weak product
and needed a big picture to jumpstart the busy summer season. The tornado
filmopened
in 2,414 theaters with a much stronger $17,009 average, ruled the charts
for two weeks, and grossed $241.7M domestically. Deep
Impact has clearance to dominate next
weekend's box office but with only a 20% increase on Saturday from Friday,
it will not end up as successful as Twister.
Still, Deep Impact left
a huge crater over the weekend and should become a very profitable venture
even with its reported $80 million production cost.

DreamWorks will handle
the international distribution through United International Pictures with
openings across much of Europe in the weeks ahead. This coming weekend,
Deep Impact will
invade Germany, the U.K., Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland,
Romania, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, Israel, Mexico, and South Africa. Australia
and New Zealand have openings on June 4th with Japan following on July
4th.

There were actually
some other movies playing at theaters over the weekend as well. Proving
to be a solid, consistently strong picture, City
of Angels grossed $4.7M pushing its cume
to $61.9M. Down just 29%, the Meg Ryan-Nicolas Cage romance has spent five
weeks being one the nation's two favorite films. Outside of Titanic,
the last film to spend five straight weekends in the top two was Liar,
Liar over a year ago. City
of Angels could face stiff competition
from the new Robert Redford tearjerker The
Horse Whisperer which opens next weekend.
Nevertheless, Angels
is set to spread its wings and fly to at least an $80M gross.

Last weekend's number
one pick He Got Game
(Spike Lee's first chart-topping film) deflated by a hefty 51% and took
third with $3.7M putting its ten-day total at $13.2M. This disappointing
second period signals an early-round elimination from the box office tournament
as its final gross may end up at around $20M. Rising two levels to fourth
place was the mighty Titanic
with $3.2M which was off just 21% for the lowest dropoff in the top ten.
The Oscar-winning love boat continues to play solidly despite losing hundreds
of screens each week. With $569.8M in the bank, the Fox/Paramount picture
returned to the top five after a one week absence. Rounding out the top
five was Les Misérables with
$2.8M, down 45%, pushing its cume to a weak $9.1M. For reviews of recent
movies visit Chief's Movie
Review Page.

Jada Pinkett Smith
got jiggy with it at number seven with Woo
which opened with $2.5M. Playing in only 625 locations, the New Line comedy
averaged a solid $4,028 per theater which was the second-best average in
the top ten. Opening head-to-head with the comet picture put a deep impact
into the opening gross of Woo which
would probably have done better had it opened on another weekend later
in the summer.

Falling out of the
top ten was Lost in Space
which spent five weeks there and has grossed $64.3M thus far. The New Line
space adventure movie, which dethroned Titanic
a month ago, has plotted a course to reach $70-75M before closing. Also
slipping from the top ten was the Gwenyth Paltrow's romantic comedy Sliding
Doors which has collected $4.7M and is
holding its own on a per-theater basis. Meanwhile, Screamwatch
must continue for another week as the slasher sequel Scream
2 came short again of hitting the $100M
mark as it ended the weekend with a $206,004 gross leaving it with a $99.7M
total.

For box office sensation
Robin Williams, Good Will Hunting
with $135.1M to date, will end up being the third highest-grossing movie
of his career. The Miramax film, which earned Williams his first Oscar
for Best Supporting Actor, has passed his other $100M+ films The
Bird Cage ($124M domestic gross), Good
Morning, Vietnam ($123.9M), Hook
($119M), and Jumanji ($100.5M)
but trails his two $200M+ films Mrs. Doubtfire
($219.1M) and Aladdin
($217M).

Compared to my projections,
Deep Impact
rocketed beyond my $22M forecast which was based on an opening in 2,000
theaters as a Paramount spokesman told me last week. Woo's
$2.5M was lower than my $4M prediction. In last week's Box Office
Guru reader survey, voters were split as 49% thought Deep
Impact would open with $25M or more while
51% thought it would be less.

The top ten films grossed
$67.3M which was up 18% from last year when The
Fifth Element opened at number one with
$17M, and was up 13% from 1996 when Twister
opened at the top with $41.1M. Be sure
to check in again on Thursday for a complete summary, including
projections, for next weekend's activity which will see The
Horse Whisperer and Quest
for Camelot take on the raging comet.

And don't forget to
voice your opinion in this week's new Seinfeld-related Box
Office Guru Reader Survey. A new weekly survey appears each Friday.

Below are final
studio figures for the weekend. Click
on the title to jump to its official home page:

This column is updated three times each week
: Thursday (upcoming weekend's summary),
Sunday (post-weekend analysis with
estimates), and Monday night (actuals).
Source : Variety, EDI. Opinions expressed in this column are those solely
of the author.